Missing muscle car back home in Worcester amid foreclosure battle

Thursday

Aug 2, 2012 at 6:00 AMAug 2, 2012 at 9:40 PM

By Thomas Caywood TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

On Tuesday afternoon, a garage door rolled up at the Manchester Police Department in New Hampshire, and Sims Dahrooge laid eyes on a familiar rear spoiler and dual exhaust pipes bristling from the back of a vintage purple muscle car.

“That’s all I had to see, and I couldn’t help it. I just started to burst into tears,” he said yesterday, back in the city with the 1973 Dodge Challenger he restored with his father, Aaron Dahrooge.

As the Dahrooges towed the car back to Worcester on a trailer, on account of a blown transmission and rear tires scorched smooth from untold burnouts, two Manchester men were being held on Massachusetts warrants for receiving stolen property.

The classic American muscle car had been taken from the Burncoat home of Aaron Dahrooge’s deceased mother in March, a day after a Bank of America contractor had gone to the home to winterize and secure it.

Bank of America is foreclosing on the vacant Uncatena Avenue home, which is in Mr. Dahrooge’s control in the meantime as executor of his mother’s estate. He stored the Challenger in the home’s garage during the winter as he did when his mother was alive, he said.

A neighbor told Mr. Dahrooge that the same crew that had winterized the home and padlocked the garage door in March returned the next day, used a key to open the garage lock and towed away the distinctive purple car, which has dual four-barrel carburetors and a chrome air scoop sticking up through the hood.

Mr. Dahrooge, who immediately reported the car stolen, said his attempts to get information about the winterization crew from Bank of America were met with months of stonewalling, a characterization disputed by the bank.

“The arrests will help us complete our investigation and determine the next steps with the vendor,” Bank of America spokeswoman Kelly Sapp said in a statement yesterday. “Bank of America placed an order with our contractor to secure the buildings, nothing more. We did not order the removal of the car or any other personal property.”

The Dahrooges said investigators told them the two New Hampshire men arrested have criminal records, one of them extensive. They maintain the bank should be liable for the damage to the car.

“The biggest thing for me is Bank of America hired criminals. Don’t they do background checks? This is supposed to be a professional bank,” Sims Dahrooge alleged.

His father’s lawyer, Thomas J. Scannell of the Worcester firm Fusaro, Altomare & Ermilio, said he’s looking into whether the Dahrooges have legal grounds to sue the bank for damages.

In the meantime, Patrick Peryer, 22, and Kurtis Lavigne, 27, both of Manchester, N.H., are fighting rendition to Worcester on charges of receiving stolen property. They were arraigned Tuesday as fugitives from justice on the charges in New Hampshire.

Mr. Peryer’s bail was set at $30,000 and Mr. Lavigne’s $15,000, police said. Manchester police found the Challenger in a detached garage at a house where at least one of the men was living, Manchester police Lt. Maureen Tessier said.

Before he learned the car was stolen, Mr. Dahrooge had told his son that he intended to sign over the title to him if he stayed out of trouble and completed a technical training course or some other higher education after he graduated from high school.

Mr. Dahrooge said rebuilding the car from a rusted hulk had been a bonding experience for him and his son, one they’ll likely have to relive, given the damage it sustained while missing.

“There’s all these mystery dings and dents in it. Look at these tires. Gone. They cracked the body by just hammering the accelerator again and again,” Mr. Dahrooge said. “It’s just a terrible shame that somebody would abuse something like this.

“It’s going to take a lot of work,” he added, “but we’ll do it together.”